Wolves at the Threshold (version 2)

Intro

Grandmother kept the keys in a tin by the stove

Said the house remembers who it held and who it lost

Some men build foundations, some men just survive

I'm the third generation walking through these doors alive

Verse 1

Landlord came in seventy-three with papers and a threat

Mama stood in the kitchen with the mortgage she ain't paid yet

Worked the cannery shift, came home with her hands split open

Left the blood on the counter like a prayer somebody's spoken

Sold the wedding ring to keep the lights on through December

Kept the deed in a shoebox, said remember, boy, remember

How the walls held us when the city tried to push us out

How the roof didn't leak when the rain came down and doubt

Sealed the cracks with her own two hands and drywall dust

Built a thing from nothing, turned her fear into a trust

Now I'm standing in the hallway where she stood and fought

Every board's a testament to what her silence bought

Not a mansion, not a fortune, just a threshold and a name

Just a place where hunger learned to look survival in the face

Chorus

Wolves at the threshold, we don't run, we reload

Built on the backbone of the ones before

Wolves at the threshold, we don't run, we reload

Ancestors watching from the floorboards and the walls

Verse 2

Brother took a job at twenty, double shift, no days off

Sent the checks back home while the city laughed

Said the game was rigged but the rent don't care about the rules

So he played it anyway, made the streets his school

Came back with scars he don't explain, just a nod and a stare

Knowledge in the wrinkles that he earned without repair

Sister got her license, first one in the line

Now she's teaching kids the math that saved our time

Grandmother's still living in that house on Elm

Said the weight of it all nearly overwhelmed

But she kept the tin, kept the keys, kept the light

Said the wolves outside don't know how hard we fight

This ain't about the money or the chains we break

This about the bloodline and the fire that won't shake

Chorus

Wolves at the threshold, we don't run, we reload

Built on the backbone of the ones before

Wolves at the threshold, we don't run, we reload

Ancestors watching from the floorboards and the walls

Verse 3

Now I'm walking through this house and I see it all

Every scar in the plaster, every mark on the wall

I could leave it, let it crumble, take the easy road

But the tin by the stove still holds what I owe

So I fix the roof the way she fixed the cracks

I keep the ledger running, never looking back

This ain't pride, it's duty, this ain't song, it's fact

Every breath I take is breath she got back

The wolves still circling, the pressure still real

But I got stone in my chest and I know how to feel

Like my people before me, like the ones who survived

Like the house itself—still standing, still alive

Outro

Keys in the tin by the stove where they stay

Threshold still holding, come what may

We don't run, we reload

We don't run, we reload